How Gratitude Can Change You and Your Brain for the Better

Gratitude can benefit you in a huge range of ways. It can help you break away from selfish mentalities and thought-patterns, and discard toxic emotions limiting you as a person. Learning to be thankful can be hugely rewarding. But can we get it wrong?

Gratitude Can Improve Your Life Even Without a Big Change

Being grateful is inherently unselfish, and taking steps away from being self-absorbed is always going to be beneficial. Even though, in today’s Machiavellian, individualistic world, staying firmly within your own head, planning and scheming your next move to get that promotion or that date can seem the right path, more often than not, it leads to unhappiness and dissatisfaction, with life in general.

Gratitude does not have to be this huge sweeping change either. You can’t go overnight from being a driven and absorbed individual, known for ignoring people around you, to the most outwardly grateful, friendly person in the world. That shift is near impossible, and even harder to maintain long-term. What you need is several easy steps to implement principles and ideas, allowing you to focus on increasing gratitude and awareness of people around you, in the long-term.

There’s a Buddhist concept out there that can be employed to increase happiness and awareness, which works entirely on the principles of positivity and gratitude. It comes down to secretly and quietly wishing happiness and good fortune on someone nearby, and if you’re alone, someone you can visualise. This automatically makes you feel better and unselfish. Feeling happier, and liking the people around you more can definitely facilitate growing gratitude.

You shouldn’t shoot for a huge change in your mentality, but a slight one, long-term

Obviously, the big issue everyone has when it comes to making any kind of change in their life is how difficult it will be, and if they can maintain it. That’s exactly why you shouldn’t shoot for a huge change in your mentality, but a slight one, long-term. Learning to do something small on the regular is far more effective in the grand scheme of things than three days of huge effort and then reverting back to ‘normal’.

People will be much more receptive and friendly to a smiling, warmer version of you

And you will notice differences and improvements. People will be much more receptive and friendly to a smiling, warmer version of you. Genuinely introducing gratitude and warmth into your approach to people will make you more aware of what they do for you, and make you more appreciative. It’ll help you make friends easier, and understand people’s shortcomings, it can even help your work life!

It all starts with little, long-term shifts, though.

Break Away From Toxic Emotions

If you had to point to one thing in your life that leaves you feeling terrible, what would it be? For some it might be their job, for others it might be a romantic situation. It could be one of a million things. A lot of the time, if you can’t bring yourself, and it simply isn’t possible, to break away from certain situations and feelings, then all you can really do is control and understand yourself. Learn to deal with and inoculate yourself against toxic, wearing emotions.

Gratitude can help you do this. From understanding the individual or situation that wronged you, to grasping that the situation can always be worse, it can give you a clear path to a happier, an easier mind-set, and allow you to become strong and purposeful enough to make the vital changes to improve your life.